Improving the income status of smallholder vegetable farmers through a homestead food garden intervention

Abstract

In this article, we assess how a homestead food garden intervention influences the income of participating vegetable farmers in South Africa. The findings show that there is a significant improvement in the income of these farmers. Specifically, the participating vegetable farmers observed an increment in their gross margins of between 39.28% and 44.49%. Our findings further indicate that households with larger farm plots have higher gross margins in a production season. The underlying impact of the participating households with farmland larger than one acre is a surge in growth margin of 35.33-44.61% relative to those owning less than1 acre. Given the benefits of the intervention, stakeholders and policymakers should expand the programme and design strategies that will foster participation. Policies to consider include the availability of farm plots and the readiness of the household to participate in vegetable production. Other Southern African Development Communities as an important food policy intervention, which can improve household income, can adopt the programme.

Keywords

Food intervention; gross margin; homestead food garden; income; vegetable farmers

Published in

Outlook On Agriculture
2019, Volume: 48, number: 3, pages: 246-254
Publisher: SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD

SLU Authors

• Owusu Sekyere, Enoch

  • Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • University of the Free State

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG10 Reduced inequalities


UKÄ Subject classification

Business Administration


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0030727019852107

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/101975